Normally feel more comfortable making fun of goofy goalies out here, but really need some help now.

I will be coaching a Squirt Team this year, and need some help/advice for drills and instruction to help these young goalies properly develop. Outside of me blasting shots at them, I have very little to offer. Interested in those out here that actually know about goaltending technique that could turn me on to some collateral that might help me better coach these kids.

There is only one bit of advice for a young goaltender that can really make a difference in his life. Tell him, "Play forward. Goalies are weirdos."

Amen. I'm living proof of that.

Crowls, you have to learn it so you can teach him. Nothing fancy at that age, dont bother with rebound control, playing the puck etc..focus on positioning/angles. I always used landmarks like face-off dots etc..know where they are in relevance to your net behind you.

Chances are at that age, their learning the butterfly, teach him good habits like being upright as much as possible in their upper body so they play as big as possible. No composite goalie sticks either, the heavier the better, forces them to keep it down.

Square to the shooter, dont worry about the player behind you or next to you. be aware they are their but focus on the shooter.

That and firing pucks at them isnt a bad idea. Shooting from the face off circles is a good idea and coming across the slot and making sure he isnt cheating too much on one side is a must. At that age, just learning how to stop the puck should be the main focus.

Make it fun for them.

Also, make sure that wooden stick is long because everyone knows the chicks love the goalies. He'll have so many hotties chasing him he'll need the longer stick to fend off the ugly ones and stare them towards the fairy forwards and unathletic pimple faced defenseman.

Positioning and angles are probably the things you should be focusing on the most. Skating movement is huge also, like being able to move standing up. HUGE HUGE HUGE! Also at that age mental toughness is a big factor, like they need to be able to understand that the net is way bigger than they are and being able to not lose focus when they let a goal in. It can be very defeating when your letting in like 5 goals are a goalie.

Use the orange colored practice pucks on them. Get about 2 or 3 of them. Just use these for shooting along the ice drills. In squirt about 90% of the shots are along the ice anyway. Use regular pucks for the high shots. This makes them stronger in the legs, wrist & holding the stick. To elborate on Kel's point on the composite's. If a parent already forked over the money they'll want the kid to use it. So, if this is the case ask the parent to tape the whole stick. Paddle & all. This will add some weight to the stick & help with keeping it on the ice.

Young goalie's hate to skate. They just wanna stop pucks nothing else. DON'T allow this to happen. Make them do all the skating drills. Don't allow them to just sit in the corner until a shooting drill comes up. Make them practice passing and shooting drills too.

"Why is a puck called a puck? Because Dirty little bastar d was taken!"- Marty Brodeur

As mentioned before, no doubt the butterfly style is best, especially at the younger age when even more shots will be within the bottom foot of the goal. I would suggest hitting youtube and search for Hockey Skills with Kevin Weekes & the NHL network. He did a few great segments on footwork and some basics that would be super helpful for young goalies.

I would also suggest a few basic things on the ready stance like making sure the goalie is holding the stick correctly, using the thumb and index finger as I have seen a few goalies holding it like a forward stick, keeping that blade on the ice and facing the shot, hips square to the shot, knees comfortably bent. A usefull trick is to pretend there is an eye in your trapper, to make sure it is always open and facing/watching/following the puck and also know that a goalie can move his glove faster from low to high, so not too keep the glove too high unless you are really trying to bait a shooter, but chances are there will be no need for this at that age.

Angles and agressiveness is another huge thing to watch. If the goalies find themselves giving too much to one side or are too far out on tight angles or are too deep on point shots, there is a pretty cool drill where you can tie a peice of rope or a long bungee cord to the posts that way the goalie has an actual visable line to see where a shot can go in or be wide. This also does a great job of showing how little needs to be done on tough angles and just not giving any glaring holes or allowing a shot to be banked in off the back off the stick. This will also show how much bigger they can appear on shots from further out And ultimately the best spot to be based on the shot location.

As mentioned before, no doubt the butterfly style is best, especially at the younger age when even more shots will be within the bottom foot of the goal. I would suggest hitting youtube and search for Hockey Skills with Kevin Weekes & the NHL network. He did a few great segments on footwork and some basics that would be super helpful for young goalies.

I would also suggest a few basic things on the ready stance like making sure the goalie is holding the stick correctly, using the thumb and index finger as I have seen a few goalies holding it like a forward stick, keeping that blade on the ice and facing the shot, hips square to the shot, knees comfortably bent. A usefull trick is to pretend there is an eye in your trapper, to make sure it is always open and facing/watching/following the puck and also know that a goalie can move his glove faster from low to high, so not too keep the glove too high unless you are really trying to bait a shooter, but chances are there will be no need for this at that age.

Angles and agressiveness is another huge thing to watch. If the goalies find themselves giving too much to one side or are too far out on tight angles or are too deep on point shots, there is a pretty cool drill where you can tie a peice of rope or a long bungee cord to the posts that way the goalie has an actual visable line to see where a shot can go in or be wide. This also does a great job of showing how little needs to be done on tough angles and just not giving any glaring holes or allowing a shot to be banked in off the back off the stick. This will also show how much bigger they can appear on shots from further out And ultimately the best spot to be based on the shot location.

Hope this helps!

Not to argue siz, but you need to becareful with teaching butterfly at such a young age. I think it's too easy to drop to the knees and they end up doing this all the time no matter where the shot is. In squirt/novice it's not that big of a deal, but it can be a hard habit to break. I always taught hybrid, unless the kid is big for his age & he has a tall parent. Teach hybrid, that way they have a much easier time to adjust down the road. Butterfly is a great style, but not if the kid isn't going to be over 6ft in height.

Use the orange colored practice pucks on them. Get about 2 or 3 of them. Just use these for shooting along the ice drills. In squirt about 90% of the shots are along the ice anyway. Use regular pucks for the high shots. This makes them stronger in the legs, wrist & holding the stick. To elborate on Kel's point on the composite's. If a parent already forked over the money they'll want the kid to use it. So, if this is the case ask the parent to tape the whole stick. Paddle & all. This will add some weight to the stick & help with keeping it on the ice.

Young goalie's hate to skate. They just wanna stop pucks nothing else. DON'T allow this to happen. Make them do all the skating drills. Don't allow them to just sit in the corner until a shooting drill comes up. Make them practice passing and shooting drills too.

"Why is a puck called a puck? Because Dirty little bastar d was taken!"- Marty Brodeur

Remember those days? I'm an idiot and I couldnt help but learn every play the coach was drilling into them. Just about every goalie at least high school and up has a goalie coach now. But at this level after the full sheet skating drills are done have shooting drills one one side of the ice...I'd put the goalie in some skating drills, not all of them. I nice trick is have net facing the boards and slam pucks off the boards onto net. Improves his reflexes.

USA Hockey has some great drills on their website that are for goalies. One piece of advice I've gotten from my son's goalie coach that I would try to use is proper spacing in the shots. Nothing more discouraging then getting two pucks shot at you at the same time. The goalie needs time to reset so they can practice their angle. Simple goalie skating drills helps too. T-glides, c-cuts. And I'd try to ask around to the area HS to see if the HS goalie would be interested in earning some volunteer time by coming onto the ice. My son dis it last year and will be doing it again. The kids love having the HS goalie out there eith them. Brings the little ones to the HS games too.

Goalie is the toughest position to teach. This is a link to the OMHA site with drill downloads. You might find something useful on this site. There is an actual section for goalies which looks pretty good. Cheers.

One drill that I always use with beginner goaltenders is a little drill that they can do by themselves. I sprinkle pucks in a semicircle around the net from 10 to 20 feet out. The goalie must maintain his goaltending stance, skate out to one of the pucks and pull it back into the crease. Once there, he selects one of the other pucks and skates to it (pushing the puck he has along the way), changes pucks and pulls it back into the crease.

At all times, the goalie must maintain his stance- glove ready for a shot. This drill addresses a few skills

1) Force the goalie to maintain his stance as he moves in, out and around.

2) Pushing/Pulling the puck at all times forces the goalie to keep his stick on the ice and drives awareness of where his stick is.

3) This really helps the goalie with his angles. Make sure that he does not look behind himself at the net- he must practice backing into the middle of the net by using the rink/circles/dots as references.

I also encourage them to do this drill during stoppages in games when the play is at the far end. Of course, they have to imagine the puck... but it keeps them working on their angles and stances at every possible opportunity.

First week of practice, the skating drills iseeue has already arisen as there is disagreement among the coaches. I put myself in the "want my goalies skating" category and am at odds with another coach that says it is a waste of time. He wants to use that time to work on footwork, positioning and goalie skills. His pov has been developed from his son's goaltending camps and the instruction learned there.

Last night's practice (3-team shared ice), rather than using the full sheet, we coned off 20 feet from the boards so he could work on footwork, positioning and goalie skills with the one goalie we had a practice.

Interested in more discussion on skating. We are running about the first 20 mintes of a 50 minute sheet on full-ice skating drills; C-Cuts, Power stride, Back C-Cuts, Pivots & Crossovers. I see the goalies working hard and doing great on the drills, but is this the best use of their time? What skating drills am I missing for the goalies, emjd mentions T-Glides? I agree with the other coach on making sure goalies get time carved out to work on their fundamentals, just trying to figure out the right mix.

I've always had the same arguement regarding my son. Its one of the reason's I got patched. Figure eight drills, cross overs and the like really don't help a goalie out. Their edge work is completely different. And it was always like talking to a wall with his coaches that never played goalie. I've never had a problem asking professional goalies for advice as my kid worked his way up. Im going to trust a person who plays it or coaches it at a professional level before I trust a father who is volunteering his time. No offense to those father coaches because I am one also.I never played goalie before, so if I was going to be any help, I needed to get educated. His current goalie coach played in the NHL and I pepper him with questions all the time.

I think the tricky part is that you are dealing with squirt level kids. Some people dont recommend kids play goalie full-time at that age yet because they will lose a step in skating development in later years if they decide they dont want to continue as a goalie, or they aren't good enough and need to play out. Some kids at that age hide in net because they are slow skaters. The problem is, goalies do need to be great skaters to excel, its just a different style of skating. I cant say enough on how great USA Hockey is with age specific drills.

The best thing that my sons youth organization did was, once a month they would run a goalie clinic for all of the goalies in the organization. The league would provide 2 hours of ice and the parents would chip in about $20 a piece and we would bring in actual goalie coaches to run the clinics. The teams coaches would also attend these clinics so that they could incorporate some of the drills into practices. We were able to bring in people like Joe Bertagnia who is in charge of gaoltending for USA Hockey. The things learned at these clinic were invaluable and the small amount parents paid for these clinics were much more affordable than sending thier kids to private goaltending camps or clinics. If you can convince your board of directors to try this it will benefit the entire organization.

Your a good coach Crowls, doing your homework for the benefit of the kids. Just remember, anything you do, none of it is wrong. At that age, just being out there playing is a learning tool. One question, do you have one goalie or two, and are they both dressed for the game?

Your a good coach Crowls, doing your homework for the benefit of the kids. Just remember, anything you do, none of it is wrong. At that age, just being out there playing is a learning tool. One question, do you have one goalie or two, and are they both dressed for the game?

Thanks for saying that kel.

I have 2 goalies on my team; 1 full-time and 1 part-time. Both kids have their own gear and both played goal exclusively over the summer. My part-timer couldn't make practice this week due to vacation, but his father sent me an email letting me know that he really caught the goalie-bug over the summer and wants to play as much as possible.

We practice 2 times per week with another squirt team that has 1 goalie, so 2-3 goalies on the ice for each practice.